Abstract
Simple SummaryThis experiment explored how feeding grape wine production waste product grape marc impacts on sheep production. Forty merino sheep were divided into two groups; one group received a sheep industry standard diet (control), and one group received a treatment diet which had 20% of the control diet replaced by grape marc. The results showed that the grape marc diet led to a higher intake and faecal nitrogen/urinary nitrogen ratio, but no difference in sheep live weight gain, behaviour, and parasitic egg count compared with control diet-fed sheep. Overall, the results showed that feeding grape wine production waste product grape marc as a cheap feed, to replace 20% of the control ration, can maintain sheep productivity, health, and environmental sustainability.A 39-day field experiment was conducted to assess the effect of grape marc (GM) feeding on sheep productivity, health, and environmental sustainability. Forty merino sheep were divided into two dietary groups, each having five replications (n = 4 sheep/replication). Experimental diet consisted of: (i) control: 55% lucerne hay + 40% wheat grain + 5% faba bean; (ii) GM treatment: control diet with 20% replaced by GM on a dry matter (DM) basis. The GM treatment contained 2–10% higher phytochemical contents than the control. The DMI from the GM treatment was 15% higher than the control (p < 0.001). No difference was found in sheep live weight gain, behaviour, and quality between groups (p > 0.05). No difference was found in total faecal production, faecal organic matter, and nitrogen contents (p > 0.05) and parasitic egg count. The GM treatment led to higher nitrogen intake (23.1 vs. 27.2 g/d) and faecal nitrogen excretion (6.3 vs. 8.7 g/d) compared to the control. Urinary creatinine, allantoin, and purine derivatives were lower in the GM treatment than control (p < 0.05). However, both groups had similar purine derivatives/DMI (i.e., indicator of rumen microbial protein synthesis efficiency; p > 0.05). Overall, the results showed that GM can replace 20% of the control ration to maintain sheep productivity, health, and environmental sustainability.
Highlights
One of the industry waste products that has recently attracted attention in the Australian livestock industries is grape marc (GM), which is known as grape pomace, a waste by-product from the wine making industry that contains solid remains of grapes after pressing for juice [4]
The dry matter (DM) content was lower for fresh GM (34.2%) compared with other feedstuffs
Dry matter digestibility (DMD) of GM was considerably lower than the other feedstuffs (Table 1)
Summary
Mitigating environmental pollution and improving both sheep productivity and welfare are the three main goals of sustainable sheep production. It is a challenge for sheep farmers in arid or semi-arid areas to meet these goals due to dry conditions and limited supply of home-grown forage, resulting in high prices of feed resources and, reduced profitability. Improve welfare and meet environmental goals, it is, important for sheep farmers to explore alternative and under-utilized feed resources, which are produced in large quantities and are non-edible for humans. It has the potential to be widely used in forage-based sheep production systems in Australia
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